Despite the Public Service Commission being established under Article 54 of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, its inception goes as far back as the year 1946. This Commission, in pursuance of Article 55 of the Constitution, has been vested with the powers of appointment, promotion, and transfer of public officers and the disciplinary control over them and their dismissal from service.

This Commission provides its service to a clientele of around one million including all public officers as well as the officers of the education field in the Provincial Public Service except those officers appointed by the President and the Cabinet of Ministers and the officers appointed by the National Audit Commission and the National Police Commission and the officers of three armed forces. With the provision of an efficient service in mind, the powers of this Commission have been delegated to two Committees covering Education and Health and to the officers such as Ministry Secretaries and Heads of Departments in terms of Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution. Nonetheless, the Commission reserves the appellate authority of all officers.

Despite the fact that the number of requests received in the Commission on daily basis amounts to very large proportion and poses a challenge, there are a few major problems faced by us, namely, the approved cadre being restricted to about 230, inordinate delay in receiving reports summoned in regard to requests, furnishing of defective or incomplete reports or those not in the prescribed forms etc. As a result of such circumstances, we have faced with a difficulty in the timely provision of services discharged by us and there are also instances where the Commission has to take the brunt of that situation. We continue to engage ourselves in a vigorous effort to make use of the communication technology as much as possible in order to overcome this challenge. I believe that the enabling of the introduction of this innovated website in this exercise is a remarkable achievement accomplished by us on your behalf. I am pleased to state that the following services have been made available for you through this website.

• Ability to have easy access to Circulars, Rules, Schemes of Recruitment, Schemes of Transfer, Citizen’s Charter etc. published by the Commission;
• Ability to download various Applications and Forms;
• Ability to be knowledgeable on the Notices and Advertisements issued by the Commission without delay;
• Ability to get to know of a summary of the decisions made by the Commission on daily basis within 02 working days;
• Ability for the respective beneficiaries to look for full particulars on the measures taken by the Commission in regard to their requests;
• Ability to know the current progress of your request through the Data Management System linked to the website in the form of a short message via your mobile phone.
• Various other services including the ability for Secretaries of Ministries / Heads of Departments to transmit the Commission the necessary information online.

Our hope through this exercise is to deliver you a high quality public service featuring the saving of your time, labour and money by reducing your number of visits to this office and the incidence of making frequent telephone calls to officers of the office, provision of an efficient service for you as quickly as possible, enhancement of the performance of officers of the office, keeping the number of requests made by you under the Right to Information Act to a minimum and the maintenance of transparency of the public service. All Members of the Public Service Commission including its Chairman, Chairmen of the Committees and its Members and all officers of the staff including myself as the Secretary are on hand to extend our optimum commitment to you and I would like to seek your corporation as well in this endeavour.

Our vision is to work for a dedicated public service towards the nation’s excellence.